RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Department of Transportation has taken to Twitter to defend the state's long-held slogan of "First in Flight" against the State of Ohio, the place where the Wrights brothers first invented their working aircraft.
Ohio, which views itself as the "Birthplace of Aviation," tried to celebrate the Wrights brother invention with a new license plate -- but the new design accidentally flipped around the airplane and mistakenly attached a banner to the front, instead of the rear, of the plane.
The mistake was quickly fixed after it was spotted on social media.
Among those accounts on social media responding to the design was the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
"Y'all leave Ohio alone. They wouldn't know. They're weren't there," the DOT tweeted including the hashtag #FirstInFlight.
Other accounts also responded, including the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, which asks its colleagues in the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to come clean up the DOT's "garbage tweet."
Waiting in the wings, both the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team and the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer.
North Carolina's "First in Flight" license plate, which commemorates the Wright Brothers' first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. in 1903, is one of three standard license plates offered by the state. Other options include "First in Freedom," which recognizes two important North Carolina milestones in the American Revolution, and the national and state motto, which includes both the United States motto ("In God We Trust") and North Carolina motto ("To Be Rather Than to Seem"). Other specialty plates are also available.
Wilbur and Orville Wright built the first aircraft capable of sustained flight.
The Dayton History Museum is home to the Wright Brothers National Museum. Vice President of Museum Operations Alex Heckman said the designer isn't the first person to make this mistake.
"This happens all the time," he said. "People mistake the front of the plane for the back. That's the heart of the problem. The designer thought they were designing it so the banner was flying out the back, but it's actually the other way."
The museum is home to one of the Wright Brothers' original planes and has a similar design to the one on the license plate. Heckman said the smaller set of wings in the front is called an elevator and helped lift the plane off the ground.